Sensex, Nifty Edge Higher Led By Gains In Auto, Banking Shares

The Indian equity benchmarks edged higher on Tuesday on the back of buying interest in banking, financial services and auto shares. Meanwhile, most Asian share markets opened a fraction higher on Tuesday, ahead of a key decision by Australia's central bank on its quantitative easing programme and despite ongoing concerns over the future regulation of China's powerful technology sector.

As of 9:24 am, the Sensex was up 66 points at 52,945 and Nifty 50 index was up 26 points at 15,860.

US markets were closed on Monday to mark the Independence Day holiday, leaving the Asian region without a strong lead to start trading on Tuesday.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.05 per cent.

Back home, buying was visible across the board as all the 11 sector gauges, barring the index of pharma shares, were trading higher led by the Nifty Realty index's nearly 1 per cent gain. Nifty Bank, Auto, Financial Services, Media, Metal, Private Bank and PSU Bank indices also rose between 0.0.3-0.7 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares were outperforming their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.35 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index advanced 0.6 per cent.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 338 crore on Monday while domestic institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 645 crore.

ONGC was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 2.3 per cent to Rs 123. Shree Cements, Tata Motors, Grasim Industries, UltraTech Cement, SBI Life, JSW Steel, HDFC Bank, Bajaj Finance, Tata Steel, HDFC Life and IndusInd Bank were also among the gainers.

On the flipside, Tata Consumer Products, Tech Mahindra, Nestle India, Hindustan Unilever, Cipla, Reliance Industries, Asian Paints, HCL Technologies, Power Grid and Bharti Airtel were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 1,872 shares were advancing while 777 were declining on the BSE.